Amendments to Supreme Court and Criminal Appeal rules

09/05/2012

The Supreme Court Rule Committee has approved the following amendment to the Supreme Court Rules and the Criminal Appeal Rules. Supreme Court Rules (Amendment No 419) 2012 (2012-172)�| Criminal Appeal Rules (Amendment No 1) 2012 (2012-168)� The amendments were published on the NSW legislation website on 4 May 2012.

Explanatory Note

The Trans-Tasman Proceedings Act 2010 will replace the Evidence and Procedure (New Zealand) Act 1994 when its substantive provisions commence. It is expected that this will be� sometime later this year. Amendments have already been approved by the URC to amend the UCPR to insert provisions that relate to civil proceedings. Those rule amendments will take effect when the effective provisions of the Act commence.� See: Uniform Civil Procedure Rules (Amendment No 51) 2011 (2011-632) — published LW 9 December 2011

The object of the Supreme Court Rules amendment is to apply certain of the UCPR provisions (in relation to subpoenas and remote appearances) to criminal proceedings in the Suprme Court.

The object of the Criminal Appeal Rules amendment is to make similar provisions in relation to evidence by audio-visual methods or telephone in relation to proceedings in the Court of Criminal Appeal. The Criminal Appeal Rule amendments also correct certain references to provisions of the Supreme Court Rules that are now in the UCPR.

The Supreme Court Rule amendments will take effect when the UCPR amendments take effect, which will be when the relevant provisions of the Trans-Tasman Proceedings Act 2010 commence. The Criminal Appeal Rule amendments will take effect at two times; the initial correction to the references to the Supreme Court Rules rather than the UCPR took effect on 4 May 2012; the 2nd part of the amendment will take effect when the TTPA amendments to the UCPR take effect.

9 May 2012